The evidence, the judge said, showed this was a case of imperfect memories, coincidences and mistaken identity. He said it was a different Peter Doige, who spelled his name with an "e," who created the artwork. Feinerman rejected the idea that Doig, the renowned artist, and Doige were the same person.

[Robert] Fletcher, 62, testified that he bought the painting of a desert landscape [for $100] while Doig was serving prison time in Canada's Thunder Bay Correctional Center. But Feinerman said it was Doige — who was several years older and painted at the time — who was briefly in prison.

2 Doig[e]s, painting in the same prison. That's odd! The plaintiff still thinks he's got a real Doig, and who knows how much money he can get for what he at least once believed was good for $10 million.

ADDED: The quote in the headline is from a law professor, and you might be disinclined to pull it apart enough to see that it's got too many negatives, as the first 2 commenters simultaneously point out:

I think there's an extra negative in that sentence. — campy at 6:53 AM

I hesitate to say that I don't disagree with you. — rhhardin at 6:53 AM

It's poorly written, as is the norm with "journalism" these days, but only one of them was in prison:

"[Marilyn Doige Bovard] confirmed her brother had been in prison where Fletcher worked in the mid to late '70s.

Doig, who now lives in Trinidad, said he's never been in prison. While he lived in Canada at the time, he said he was attending school in Toronto, 500 miles from the prison. Feinerman said yearbooks proved Doig was, in fact, in Toronto when Fletcher said he was in prison."

This exposes a big problem in the art world that few will acknowledge; if a living artist has to go to great pains to show he didn't do a work attributed to him, what about all the other art that is attributed to artists with even scantier evidence?

Plus, if the value of a painting rests on an 'e', doesn't that show just how phony art prices are?